Migrants coming to Australia may have to utilize a certain period of time on mandatory provisional visas before they are accepted a permanent residency. The Immigration Department is discover this possibility in a visa transformation discussion paper liberated on Monday.

“Should a coming migrant spend a period of time in Australia before becoming conferrable for permanent residence? What cause should be considered?” is one of the questions the discussion paper is investigate.

It was indirect in November last year that the Federal Government was to dissertate this move and a “protected” and “sensitive” note was seen by the national security committee and was to be brought before the ministry this year.

“The number of individuals in Australia applying for permanent residence has grown substantially over the last two decennary. In 2015-16, around half of all permanent visas were accepted to people already in Australia on a temporary visa. This means that temporary residence is increasingly becoming the first step to existing in Australia permanently,” the discussion paper published on Monday read.

It has been reason that it’s in the national interest to facilitate a pathway to permanent residence for the “best and the flamboyant” international students and skilled workers and that some permanent visas include compulsory provisional visa stages.

However, beneath most of the permanent visa categories, migrants do not have to interpolate any time in Australia before they are acknowledged permanent residency, which the discussion paper says is Inconsistent with “like-minded countries”, such as the UK, the Netherlands and the US that have a more decorative assessment process and period for estimating those who seek to stay permanently.

Though introducing such a seasoned period for permanent migrants is likely to communicate budget savings, concerns have been cocked that it could create a disunite in the Australian community.

“The introduced reforms could undermine Australia’s social cohesion and potentially enhancement the risk factors that may lead to onslaught extremism by creating a two-tier community where migrants are treated substantially otherwise to Australian citizens,” the Social Services Department said in a note prefabricated last year for a meeting with the DIBP boss Michael Pezzullo to discuss this movement.

Maninder Singh Bhullar was on an ephemeral visa for two years before he got his permanent residency earlier this year. He says a mandatory duration of stay on a temporary visa will cause unnecessary hardships to the expatriate.

“Not many employers were willing to hire me as long as I was on a temporary visa. Getting a loan to start something of my own was much more difficult than it is now,” he told News Channel.

Mr. Bhullar says as a migrant on a ephemeral visa just arriving in Australia, he had to cost hundreds of dollars in health insurance premiums in the annihilation of Medicare cover is a significant drain when he was just starting off and didn’t have a stationary income.

“It is an important drain when I was just departure off and didn’t have a stable income,” he said. “It’s not a pleasant experimentation to recount all this.”

Monday’s conversation paper has been floated to transmutation Australia’s visa system and modernize it which it says is “an artefact of a bygone era” and is “ill-suited to this future”.

General changes being discussed include unpalatable the number of visa categories from 99 to about 10 and making the visa system resilient so the government can respond more speedily to local and global trends.